By Darren Turley
TAD Executive Director
The 89th Texas legislative session is likely about half over when you read this, which means it will be extremely busy at the Capitol until session ends on June 2.
Texas Association of Dairymen staff and governmental relations team have been working diligently to address dairy policy issues. In February, the TAD Board of Directors took it’s turn in the Capitol during its board meeting in Austin. They took care of business in the morning and that afternoon visited legislative offices to talk about dairy concerns, answer questions and deliver informational material about the Texas dairy industry.
Board members also enjoyed more informal interactions with a number of lawmakers and staff at a legislative dinner hosted by TAD and the Texas Agricultural Cooperative Council. TAD and TACC have hosted this dinner for several legislative sessions as an appreciation for the legislators who take care of rural Texas and the Texas dairy producers.
Below in the newsletter you’ll see photos from some of these legislative visits.
Working at the Capitol during a legislative session becomes all encompassing. The days (and often nights) grow very long as legislators move through the process to move thousands of bills from filing to passage. Bill filing deadline (except in limited circumstances) ended on Friday, March 14, the 60th day of the legislative session. See the legislative team’s report in this newsletter for final numbers of bills filed, and how many TAD is monitoring that impact dairy, agriculture and rural Texas.
Screwworm outbreak concerns
The other big issue of concern this month is the outbreak of the New World screwworm, which can burrow into the flesh of a living animal, causing serious and often deadly damage to the animal.
The outbreak really got attention in 2023 when Panama went from 25 cases per year to 6,500 cases. Since then, screwworm has been detected in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Mexico, north of the biological barrier that’s successfully contained this pest to South America for decades.
More than 47,000 cases documented through January in all these countries. Mexico has just seen infections near its southern border, and the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced on Feb. 26 that it is shifting sterile fly dispersal efforts to Mexico to help stop screwworm eggs form being laid and more infections from occurring. APHIS is investing $109.8 million to combat new detections in Central America and Mexico to keep the pest from spreading into North America.
With Texas on the border of Mexico, TAD and other animal agriculture groups are monitoring this disease very closely with the help of Texas Animal Health Commission staff. The next few months will tell us how successful the sterile fly program is in keeping the screwworm as far to the south in Mexico as possible and possibly push it back into Guatemala.
Lastly, spring is coming, which means spring weather such as strong winds, rain and other storms. A recent storm with extreme winds damaged the roof at the Southwest Regional Dairy Center at Tarleton State University. I know other producers lost shades and had electrical issues due to the storm events.
Take care and enjoy the sunshine and warmer weather.
